Who Cares Wins

I knew the no initiative thing was going to be controversial with my gaming group.  I gave it a try with Pinnacles Savage Worlds rules set to see what they thought.  There was some resistance as expected.

The players were not used to the idea of simultaneous action.  They seemed to think if they won initiative they really won something big.  I was explaining even with initiative they only real benefit is on the round they kill someone they prevent their action.  So in reality they are only avoiding one attack or action.  With simultaneous action that last action goes off.  This really just gave enemies a chance to run, which seemed to piss of the players even more, they are very concerned with wrapping up loose ends i guess.

They were a little hesitant with the opponent going first, this surprised me.  I tried to explain that since everyone acts in a round they were actually better off going last.  They got to see their enemies action and react after.  Again grumbling.

Finally they showed me the real fatal flaw in my evil scheme to speed up combat, players acting against each other.  Damn I didn't even expect this would happen, but first fucking game! First fucking encounter!  In my game there is less of a problem with this as you have the stones you can used to control the actions. But damn they have them in Savage worlds too.  The players just didn't spend them. FUCK!

From here you have a few options some of which will not sit well with players.  Just decided which ever outcome suits your story best happens.  Screw it your the GM you have a hard enough job, you deserve a break.  But players start feeling railroaded.  Go with logic the fastest character wins a chase or whatever.  But here you will get down to some actions were the characters are just equal mechanically and neither have role played out a reason that the scene should go their way.  Coin flip or something?  These are often rather important game defining scenes when two characters are in conflict, you really need something more dramatic.

I am almost thinking I need that initiative roll there just to keep people happy.  It just seems to time consuming and for a less than important aspect of the game.  See I have wasted all this time writing up a post just for my problems with it.